Sometimes you just absolutely need to eat noodles with quail eggs and spinach. It’s a health thing. Even if you don’t have the ingredients to make it happen, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Of course I had all the ingredients but that’s besides the point. If I didn’t, I would get them or substitute the hell out of the correct ingredients. That’s the kind of person I am :D Yesterday, besides craving noodles, I was bored. I’m sort of in limbo; my husband is retiring in July and I’m waiting to go back to Germany to triage our things for pack out to the U.S. and France. I am so done with packing out! It’s stressful and disorienting. In addition, I don’t want to go to Germany. Whine. Good idea!

Anyway, I was bored yesterday. I looked out in the garage freezer and to my surprise, there was a pork belly underneath all those packages of thick sliced bacon my husband bought at the commissary! My hat! Not my exclamation but I heard somebody really old say that :) The pork belly had started to get that dry, aged, I’ve-been-in-the-freezer-way-too-long-look. No matter what my husband says, things do not last for years in the freezer. As I should have, I took it out to thaw and cook, hoping for the best.

This was a French cut pork belly with a small slab of ribs attached. I know I should have rubbed the meat with an Asian-like rub but I took out the Bavarian essence anyway. Sometimes you just have to fly in the face of convention. I do that all the time and it’s liberating. Okay, the Bavarian essence was already made and I didn’t want to make an Asian rub :D I cut the ribs from the pork belly and wondered what to do with the ribs; they couldn’t go back into the freezer.

Happily, the freezer burn/aging only affected the meat’s surfaces. It looked good inside. In celebration, I decided to make a pork stock with the ribs. Slice 2 carrots, 2 onions and peel 5-6 garlic cloves, then put on the bottom of a roasting pan. Slice the ribs into individual bones and put on top of the vegetables. Roast at 425 F for about 1 hour, then boil in a whole bunch of water with a cinnamon stick and 3 whole star anise until the meat falls off the bones. Strain the liquid and reserve for the noodle broth. Chop the meat and reserve as a noodle topping. Or just use canned chicken broth and poach some chicken breasts :)

You can cook the pork belly on the grill or in the oven. I cooked it in the oven at 425 F for 30 minutes, then lowered the temperature to 350 F for 1 1/2 hours. I served the finished pork belly with some diluted plum sauce. Extraordinary!

Udon Noodles, Pork, Spinach and Quail Eggs

6-8 cups homemade pork stock or chicken stock or canned broth

3-4 tbsp tamari soy sauce

3-4 bundles of dried udon noodles

1/2 lb fresh spinach, cut into strips

2 cups cooked pork or chicken, chopped

12-18 quail eggs, hard boiled and sliced in two

Spring onions, sliced

Bring the broth to a full boil, then add the noodles and cook according to package directions. Divide the noodles between 6-8 bowls, then top with the spinach, the meat and the quail eggs. Ladle some hot broth over all and sprinkle with the onions.

Thank you Joanne. Yes we will divide our time between Pennsylvania and Sens. Jade is now in a private school in Massachusetts. We’ll take her out this summer and enroll her in a school in our town in PA.